Saturday Seasons: For 2015, it was Yo Gotta Believe
- A.J. Carter
- 1 day ago
- 7 min read
If the old baseball adage holds true that sometimes the best trades are the ones you don’t make, consider this corollary that applies to the 2015 New York Mets: Sometimes, the best trades you make are the ones that happen because one you did make falls through.
A convincing argument could be made that the Mets made it to the World Series largely because the July trade that would have sent Wilmer Flores and Noah Syndergaard to the Milwaukee Brewers fell through when the Mets looked at Carlos Gomez’ medical records. Instead, general manager Sandy Alderson sent two pitching prospects (only one of whom, Michael Fulmer, panned out) to the Detroit Tigers for Yoenis Cespedes, whose hot hitting propelled the Mets through the playoffs and into the World Series.
Not totally because of Cespedes, of course. This was a team that from the outset was expected to win and, with Derek Jeter having retired, take back the city from the Yankees – or so, it was predicted in the baseball preview edition of the Daily News. “Yes, Mets Fans…You Can Believe!” was one headline in the section.
The rotation was considered solid, with Matt Harvey returning from Tommy John surgery, a full year of Jacob DeGrom, the reliable Bartolo Colon, John Niese and contributions from (pick one as the fifth starter} Rafael Montero, Steven Matz and Noah Syndergaard (who would win that battle). A lineup that included Curtis Granderson, David Wright, slugger Lucas Duda, pesky Daniel Murphy.
But, this being the Mets, weird things could be expected to challenge the optimism, starting with closer Jenrry Mejia, who, after the first series of the season, failed a drug test and was banned for 80 games – a ban that would have an additional 162 games added when he again tested positive after returning from that suspension.
“We’re all shocked and disappointed, but we stand by the rules and what Major League Baseball has put down” manager Terry Collins said. “We’ll have to regroup and get through the next 80 games with somebody else.” That somebody turned out to be Jeurys Familia, who performed admirably until the World Series.
And in typical Mets fashion, even an 11-game April winning streak would be tinged by injuries, both odd and concerning. A line drive broke lefty reliever Jerry Blevins’ arm. Catcher Travis D’Arnaud suffered a wrist injury when hit by a pitch in the same game. Third baseman/captain David Wright pulled a hamstring stealing a base and, while on the disabled list, was diagnosed with career-threatening spinal stenosis.
“The dark cloud had been in evidence, but nobody wanted to acknowledge it,” Bill Madden wrote in the News, summing up how the winning streak had masked the effect of the injuries.
Almost as could be expected, the team’s fortunes went south a bit in May after that fast April start, prompting the team to call up Syndergaard for his major league debut. But the so-so play continued, including a seven-game losing streak in June that dropped the team to one game below .500. This time, the emergency call to Las Vegas brought in Matz, who provided a spark in his first major league game – not with him arm, but with his bat, a four RBI game that broke the team record for RBI in a major league debut.
The Mets began July by dropping three to the Cubs, scoring but a single run in the series, and, with the team’s record at 40-40, local media began excoriating Alderson and the Wilpons for not recognizing the need to upgrade the offense.
In a story headlined “Time to Hit…The Panic Button,” Bill Madden wrote: “Sandy Alderson can joke all the wants about the media being Panic City, but that’s what this is right now. The lineup Terry Collins was forced to throw out there Thursday…was embarrassing…All season long, Alderson has sapped Collins with what is, without a doubt, the worst, least productive bench in all of baseball.”
It took until July 24 for Alderson to follow one of Madden’s suggestions by calling up Michael Conforto from Double-A Binghamton, the same day Alderson traded two mjnor league pitchers for infielders Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe.
But those were only the appetizers for the main courses to come.
Alderson engineered a July 29 trade for former-Mets-farmhand-turned-All-Star-outfielder-somewhere-else Gomez, sending Syndergaard and Wilmer Flores to the Brewers – and then backed out of the deal, purportedly over concerns about the condition of Gomez’ hips. But before the deal was formally nixed, word about its imminence worked its way not only the Brewers’ website, but also onto social media and to Flores’ ears. Fans gave him a standing ovation when he hit in the seventh, believing it was his last at bat in a Met uniform, and Flores teared up as he took the field in the eighth inning over the prospect of leaving the only organization he had known.
“You think these guys are stone cold robots, but they’re not,” manager Collins was quoted in the next day’s paper. “They’re human beings with emotions. This kid is upset, he’s sad, he’s been a Met his whole life, and he probably wants to be a Met…I feel terrible for Wilmer.”
Two days later, Alderson engineered deal for Cespedes, minutes before the trade deadline. Manager Collins was giddy. “I salute the front office and ownership,” he said. “We’re in the mix and I salute the fact that they made a move that made us better.”
And Flores? He celebrated making it past the trade deadline by hitting a 12th-inning walk-off home run in a 2-1 win over the division leading Washington Nationals.
Cespedes and Conforto provided the needed spark, and the Mets, 52-50 at the time of the Cespedes trade, went 38-22 over the remaining part of the regular season with Cespedes hitting 17 home runs and batting in 44. The Mets overtook the Nationals on August 3 and never looked back, although an October swoon, including an October 3 no-hitter by the Nationals’ Max Scherzer, cost them home-field advantage in the division series. No matter, they defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games behind Murphy’s three home runs, and then swept the Chicago Cubs to win the pennant as Murphy hit another four dingers.
(As an odd aside, the Mets’ sweep belied the pennant prediction made in the 1989 film, Back to the Future II, which had the Cubs defeating a Miami American League team to win the World Series).
The World Series? Let’s just say it was a disappointment, not just because the Mets lost in five games to the Kansas City Royals, but because in three of the losses, a case can be made they should have won. And Cespedes, the man who arguably was most responsible for the Mets getting there, played a key role in at least two those losses.
Of course, Matt Harvey’s Game 1 opening pitch should have provided enough of an omen that the Mets were headed for disappointment: the Royals’ Alcides Escobar hit a fly ball to the left-center gap that Cespedes misplayed, allowing Escobar to round the bases for the first World Series inside-the-park home run since 1929.
The Mets recovered from that gaffe and even took a lead. They were two outs from winning when closer Familia blew his first save since July 30, surrendering a game tying home run to Alex Gordon. The game went into extra innings, and in the bottom of the 14th, the Royals won on a David Wright throwing error, a Ben Zobrist single off Bartolo Colon and an Eric Hosmer sacrifice fly.
The Royals got to both starter Jacob DeGrom and starter-turned-reliever-for-the-series Jon Niese and won the second game, 7-1. But when the series shifted to Citi Field, it was the Royals who made the mistakes -- pitcher Yordan Ventura forgot to cover the base on a ground ball to the first baseman in the fourth and reliever Franklin Morales triple-clutched Curtis Granderson's ground ball in the sixth, allowing all runners to be safe, which led to a 2-run single by David Wright. The Mets won, 9-3.
Game four was another nail biter, and another one in the Mets’ grasp, despite miscues that included Cespedes literally kicking a fly ball instead of catching it, Colon throwing a pickoff throw into center field, Tyler Clippard walking the tying and winning runs on base and Familia again blowing a save, helped along by a Murphy error that allowed the tying run to score. Two RBI hits after that gave the Royals a 5-3 lead. The Mets threatened in the ninth and had Lucas Duda at the plate as the winning run with two on base and one out. Duda hit a soft line drive to third baseman Mike Moustakas. Cespedes, thinking the ball would hit the ground, was easily doubled off at first to end the game.
“Devastating is probably not the right word,” Clippard was quoted as saying in the Los Angeles Times.
Game five saw a pitching rematch of the first game, with Matt Harvey facing Edinson Volquez, returning from his father’s funeral in the Dominican Republic. Granderson hit a leadoff home run and scored the Mets’ second run in the sixth. But with the Mets threatening to break the game open – bases loaded, nobody out – Cespedes fouled a ball off his leg and, injured, popped out before coming out of the game. A sacrifice fly and a ground out ended the inning.
Harvey, staked to a two-run lead, pitched brilliantly: eight shutout innings. But in one of those eternal what-if debates, Collins yielded to Harvey’s insistence and allowed him to take the mound to start the ninth. A leadoff walk and a run-scoring double later, Familia came in for what became his third blown save of the series, helped by a Duda wide throw that allowed the tying run to score. Again, the game went into extra innings, but this time, the Royals left no doubt about the outcome, breaking out for five runs in the 12th off Addison Reed and Bartolo Colon to seal the win and the championship.
The last out? A Wilmer Flores strikeout.
Wudda, cudda, shoulda. The whole World Series was a crying shame.
Comments